


Hope, and What It Takes To Lose It

by melimarron



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, BAMF Annabeth Chase, BAMF Clarisse La Rue, Gen, and most of the named person deaths happen in the first paragraph, but its not graphic or anything, major character deaths, tall order i know, teeeeechnically demeter is one of the eldest gods, the big three kept their promise, what if
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-27
Updated: 2020-05-27
Packaged: 2021-03-02 21:20:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,529
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24413500
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/melimarron/pseuds/melimarron
Summary: What if the Big Three kept their promise and didn't have any demigod children after World War Two?Kronos rises with a smile on his face, a loyal servant that has willingly given up his body, and nobody who can stop him.
Relationships: Annabeth Chase & Clarisse La Rue
Comments: 8
Kudos: 48





	Hope, and What It Takes To Lose It

Everyone believed that the Greek and Roman children of the Big Three were dead.

Thalia Grace. Transformed into a tree when she was fifteen.

Percy Jackson. Killed by a snake as a preschooler.

Nico DiAngelo. Disintegrated by a lightning bolt decades before the prophecy would ever come to fruition.

Bianca DiAngelo. Spirited away by her father to a secret location.

Jason Grace. Vanished at the age of three, likely bitten by one of the many rattlesnakes that live in and around the Wolf House.

Hazel Levesque. Drowned on an island thwarting Gaea for the first time.

There were no more children left, the gods believed, that could possibly threaten Kronos; there was no need to fear their oldest and greatest enemy.

If there was no prophesied hero, then there would never be a prophesied enemy.

That is what they believed.

But now, the gods noticed, Kronos was stirring.

* * *

Annabeth Chase takes on the quest to find Zeus’ lightning bolt, and for old times’ sake, she brings Grover and Luke along.

Predictably, this ends horribly.

Annabeth and Grover return to camp empty handed.

Luke returns to his master, bolt and helm in his hands.

* * *

Clarisse La Rue ventures into the Bermuda Triangle in search of the Golden Fleece. She finds Grover instead.

They do their best to thwart Luke, but without Hermes’ favor or someone who could control the seas, Annabeth is forced to stay at camp. Clarisse and Grover fight Polyphemus alone. They escape with the Fleece, and are halfway to an airport when Annabeth calls and tells them that Thalia is dead.

Clarisse and Grover return to camp, both simmering with fury at the loss of Thalia and Luke’s underhanded victory.

Far away, Luke smiles and tries not to think about how Thalia and her tree died slowly and alone, betrayed by one she’d once called a friend.

* * *

Chiron hasn’t felt this hopeless in a long time. His young heroes, the children that he taught to defend themselves against monsters, would have to fight a war they had no hope of winning.

They would have to fight a war against a prophesied villain with no prophesied hero to match the villain, no young man or woman who could lead them and fight alongside them and keep them alive as they fought for their parents, for their world.

He’s on the verge of dispersing the camp and sending as many people home for their own safety as he can when Grover Iris-Messages him from Westover Hall with a nervous grin on his face and declares that _I think I’ve found someone, Chiron, I think we might be okay._

* * *

Bianca DiAngelo is the second child of the Big Three that Grover has found in his lifetime. He meets her, smiles, shakes her hand, and as soon as he’s alone, he contacts Chiron.

There is no friendly group of demigods sent to convince Bianca that she is in great danger this time. This time, Bianca is the only surviving child of the Big Three. This time, Grover smiles and jokes and becomes her friend, as he would have done with Percy.

Doctor Thorn attacks Bianca when she is alone, on a snowy night in Westover Hall. The Hunters and Grover arrive in time to save her, but the world has a certain order to it, and though Bianca, the only hope of the demigod world, is saved, one of the Hunters falls off a cliff and Artemis leaves to hunt the Ophiotaurus.

Bianca is not made into a Hunter. Artemis refuses to halt the aging process of the only demigod who might be able to defeat Kronos.

At Camp Half-Blood, a prophecy is spoken, Phoebe is conquered by a prank T-shirt, and Grover, Annabeth, Zoë, Clarisse, and Bianca embark on a quest.

* * *

Bianca dies in the land without rain.

The others stand in shocked silence for as long as they dare, staring at Talos’ metal body and the place where they had last seen their only hope for a future.

Then they move on from Bianca’s final resting place, stony-faced and telling themselves that they had expected this.

Grover and Annabeth make eye contact as they stumble away from the gigantic robot that was now going to be Bianca’s coffin, and both of them are thinking the same thing.

_How is it that two children of the Big Three have now died in their defense?_

* * *

The Labyrinth rises and falls.

Luke becomes Kronos.

Camp Half-Blood is attacked.

The war has begun, and there is no more time to wait for a prophesied hero.

* * *

This time around, Kronos doesn’t have a mortal enemy to fight.

He still takes Luke to the Styx, and, with his mother’s permission, Luke becomes invulnerable.

This time, his weak point is over his heart.

* * *

The Battle of New York takes weeks.

There’s no child of the Big Three there to turn the tide in Camp Half-Blood’s favor. There is nobody to persuade Poseidon and Hades to take to the battlefield to save the demigods. Ares gives his blessing to Clarisse, but it isn’t enough. The Hunters of Artemis, led by Phoebe, take to the field, and so do nymphs and satyrs, led by Grover, but there’s only so much they can do against an army of thousands.

An already small fighting force grows smaller and smaller.

* * *

The first borough they lose is Staten Island.

* * *

Then Brooklyn.

* * *

Then the Bronx.

* * *

After they lose the Bronx, Annabeth orders most of the remaining demigods to retreat to Manhattan. By this point, their numbers have been halved. Most of their missing fighters are dead, but a good number have simply deserted the army.

But no matter how small their fighting force has become, they have to protect Olympus.

A small force is left behind to defend Queens. The group, made up of all the demigods that survived to adulthood that Chiron could find, smile grimly and lift their heads high as they march off to fight for Queens and hold off the monsters as long as they can.

Annabeth and Clarisse lead the war council meetings in an abandoned hotel, consulting Chiron and the Hunters and the other counselors. They combine strategy and brute force to defend Manhattan.

It still isn’t enough. They don’t have a child of the eldest gods. They don’t know who is meant to make the choice that will save them or doom them.

(None of the surviving demigods like to think about how even if they did have the hero of the prophecy, there is nothing in the world that could force that hero to be on their side.)

(Even if they did have that hero, their minds whisper, they might still have ended up fighting this hopeless battle, but against an even stronger force.)

* * *

“Hey,” fifteen year old Miranda Gardiner, daughter of Demeter, says on the evening after another long battle fighting for control of New York. “Demeter’s one of the eldest gods, isn’t she?”

Clarisse looks up from her maps of New York wearily. “What are you talking about, punk?” Her voice lacks it’s usual venom.

Annabeth looks up more slowly, and just stares at Miranda with exhausted gray eyes, clearly expecting an answer.

Miranda just grins at her fellow camp counselors and gets up to find Chiron, the other counselors, and as many of her siblings as she can. “You’ll see,” she sings, and the glee in her voice is almost upsetting after weeks of constant war.

If prophecies hadn’t taken away Luke twice over, or falsely promised Clarisse victory, or take away their only chance at having a child of the Big Three fight on the side of the demigods, Annabeth and Clarisse might have questioned Miranda.

But after so many broken prophecies, Annabeth and Clarisse just sigh and follow Miranda out.

* * *

Miranda’s theory is this:

Maybe the Oracle just put in “gods” because it rhymed.

Demeter was one of the six original gods (and is the only one to have demigod children at the moment).

Maybe the prophecy was never just about Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades.

Maybe the prophecy is about a sixteen-year-old child of Demeter.

* * *

Before the assembled counselors and Hunters and Chiron can agree whether or not to put what Clarisse has dubbed “Stupidity” and Annabeth has more kindly dubbed “Miranda’s Theory” into action, a child of Hermes comes running into the room, out of breath and near collapse.

When he can speak again, the room goes quiet.

_Queens has been overtaken._

Annabeth breaks the silence. “Someone go find a sixteen year old child of Demeter.”

“I’m like two weeks away from turning seventeen,” Katie Gardener, the current counselor for the Demeter Cabin, says, and for the first time in a long time, their voices are tinged with hope, not desperation.

* * *

In the end, of course, the sixteen year old child of the prophecy is not the key to Olympus’ preservation or destruction.

In the end, Luke takes Annabeth’s knife and defeats Kronos.

In the end, hundreds of shrouds are burned.

* * *

(The son of Jupiter, fifteen years old, blond, and amnesiac, shows up the following year after Annabeth Chase vanishes, courtesy of Hera.)

(Chiron is, in a word, unamused.)

**Author's Note:**

> Let me know what you think!


End file.
